


it's right before my eyes

by blueprintofyourpast



Series: bridges [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Author is still sleep-deprived, Everything is still awkward, F/M, Idiots in Love, Introspection, Light Angst, Michelle Jones is a Little Shit, Peter Parker is a Lovely Mess, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Relationship, Subliminal Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-04
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2020-10-10 03:29:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20521208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueprintofyourpast/pseuds/blueprintofyourpast
Summary: The air between them is stuffed with a thousand thoughts and questions that roam and thrash around his head. It’s always like that when it’s just the two of them (which is why he tends to avoid being alone with her in the first place) and there’s so much he wants to talk to her about, so much he wants to know that hedoesn’tknow where to start.He wants to know about that song she was listening to on the field trip and if she listened to it again today on her way here. He wants to know about her favourite bands, books, and movies. He wants to know why she’s always so mean to him and why he doesn’t want her to stop.Why being in the same room with her makes him so fucking nervous all the time and why thinking about her when he’s alone and crippled with fear calms him down like nothing else. He wants to know everything at once.“So, what are you drawing?”...Or: Peter is in denial. (Until he isn't.)





	it's right before my eyes

**Author's Note:**

> to those of you who left kudos/a comment on the first part of the series: thanks for boosting my serotonin level, you guys made my day :) 
> 
> the title is a direct quote from _what you know_ by two door cinema club.
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> disclaimer: i own nothing.

Spring comes barging in with thunderstorms and rose gold sunsets. The sky above Queens is drenched in sea foam and the streets become a home for wet cherry blossom petals. Everything smells like rain and bubble-gum. People stop rushing from A to B. Instead, they take their time and revel in the rising temperatures, and they shed their coats and sigh with relief as steaming cups of hot chocolate get replaced with punch-pink lemonade.

From the window in his room, Peter can see the shop door of an ice cream parlour swing open to unleash a small group of kids, armed with giant waffle cones holding loads of Blue Moon and Rocky Road. They babble excitedly while their mothers chase after them. Chuckling at the sight, he thinks back to the summer he turned five.

Ben and May – just as giddy and gleeful as newlyweds should be – would take him to Pesso’s* every other Sunday. There, he would wolf down three scoops of hazelnut gelato and pass out from sugar-induced happiness, leading his uncle to snicker with mirth and carry him all the way back home.

Ben had a great laugh, a booming guffaw that could shake the ground beneath your feet, deep and genuine and utterly infectious. More often than not, it would die away in a goofy giggle that clashed hard with his bearlike appearance. 

(He was a tall guy, bearded and burly and blessed with a heart of gold. According to May, he used to spend his high school years playing pranks and stealing bicycles with his friends. By the time he went to college, however, his love for mischief morphed into a strong passion for graphic design, which he later turned into a career.)

There are times when Peter finds himself fantasising about what it would be like if Ben were still here. Would he still suck at video games? Would he still prefer french toast over chocolate chip pancakes? Would he and May have a kid of their own by now? Would he approve of what Peter’s trying to achieve as Spider-Man?

He drums his fingers against the windowsill.

It doesn’t matter.

His losses are all linked together these days: Ben makes him think of his parents and his parents make him think of Mr Stark. And it shouldn’t be like that because he can hardly remember his parents and he’s not sure if he knew Mr Stark long and well enough to consider him a true father figure. 

Sure, he was his mentor (maybe even his work-dad), but they never got to sit down and talk about more than the usual superhero stuff because in the end, something always got in the way, be it an out-of-control super soldier, a weapons dealer with a bird fetish, or five years in which Peter existed in photographs and painful memories only.

Well, at least they got to reunite and hug it out for a couple of seconds before karma, fate, or some other cosmic crap fucked them over once again… and wow, the blip really managed to boost his cynical side, huh? MJ would be proud if she knew. 

(Spoiler alert: she doesn’t. All she knows is that he’s a fucking idiot. It’s a rather simple fact she likes to remind him of on a daily basis.)

But yeah. MJ. They’re friends now. Kind of.

_Fuck knows how that happened._

He has her number (mainly because Betty came up with the idea of a decathlon group chat, but that’s beside the point) and she joins him and Ned for lunch once or twice a week. And he doesn’t mind her company. No, he lets her steal food from his plate and he’s kinda awe-struck every time she feels the need to hold a spontaneous lecture about state-funded cell phone surveillance.

He’s incredibly awkward around her, too. Always a sweaty, red-as-beet mess with no brain-to-mouth filter, which is probably owed to his lack of expertise when it comes to acting like a normal person in front of girls (see the whole Liz situation) or pretty much everyone except for May, Ned, Happy, and Mr Delmar.

(Chances are he’d be _less_ awkward around MJ if he was wearing his mask, but to say that he’s hoping that he’s never going to run into her as Spider-Man would be a gross understatement. Facing her in his suit would either mean that she’s in danger or that the whole world is about to be invaded by aliens again… and he’s had his fair share of big, horrendous battles.)

_Anyway._

He’s supposed to meet her and the rest of the team in a café in Woodside in about twenty minutes because competition never sleeps and they need to step up their game if they want to make it to Washington this fall. 

(They’re hardcore, Mr Harrington decided, so getting together every other weekend to study and strategize is now part of the new normal, no matter how often and excessively they all like to complain about it. And despite her role as re-elected captain of the team, MJ appears to be as lackadaisical as ever about the whole thing if it weren’t for the small, happy gleam that tends to flare up in her eyes after each of her famous, nerve-wracking drill sessions.

Peter admires that about her. Her zero-tolerance approach towards anyone’s bullshit and those rare moments when her face goes soft with vague affection for the same people, who were getting on her last nerve mere minutes ago. He likes that she’s keeping them on their toes. That she’s tough but caring by nature.)

He smiles to himself. He’s been thinking about her a lot lately. About the first time he saw her after the blip.

(She was stomping down the hallway then, seemingly lost in a sea of strangers, and she had her nose in a book as if this was just another Monday morning, and he couldn’t help but look at her. Couldn’t help but give in to the mix of relief and sympathy that went off in his belly like a nail bomb and left him riddled with so much phantom-grief that he forgot how to breathe for a moment.

He lamented the fact that she, like many others, had been gone for half a decade, but he couldn’t deny he was glad to see her. He even told her so in an unexpected rush of boldness and he let out a snort when she flipped him off in passing. 

He smirked, shook his head, and his eyes began to sting, and then, when Ned crashed into him with open arms, he thought that slowly but surely, things were starting to make sense again. After all, Ned was still his best friend and Michelle still hated his guts, and it was nice to know that some things hadn’t changed… )

… but then Michelle became MJ and now he’s here, _smiling_ to himself.

He’s late, he hasn’t slept in ages and his stomach is a bottomless pit filled with guilt and half-digested nightmares and yet he’s smiling to himself. 

He’s smiling to himself when he leaves the house and hurries down Queens Boulevard, smiling to himself when he’s on the train to Woodside and bobbing his head to the happy indie song that’s spilling from his headphones, smiling to himself when he scrolls through his text messages and learns that Ned is going to be late as well. 

Hell, he’s still smiling to himself when he enters the café and finds a familiar figure curled up in a deep brown wing chair next to a giant kentia palm.

“You look like a zombie,” she tells him in lieu of a proper greeting, her eyes glued to the sketchbook that’s resting in her lap.

The place (a tiny venue with cream-coloured walls, dark wooden furniture, and floor-to-ceiling windows) is almost empty. Some generic pop music is tootling away in the background and MJ’s voice cuts through it like a razor-blade, prompting Peter to straighten his back and look around nervously. 

He’s early.

_Huh._

He’s early and so far, it’s just him and MJ who’ve made it in time. Just him and his snarky, intimidating kind-of-friend. Alone.

_Oh no._

She’s wearing her trademark ponytail and usual tomboy attire: steel-capped boots, black jeans, and an over-sized denim jacket with a fake shearling collar. It’s her battle suit, perfected with a pro-feminist slogan scribbled across her yellow sweater, and she’s wearing _glasses_, too, which is totally not the reason why he has to clear his throat before he regains his ability to form coherent sentences.

“W-Where is everyone?”

“Mr Harrington’s over there placing his order and making a fool of himself,” she says, still not looking at him and lifting a hand to direct his attention to the far left side of the shop where their teacher is leaning against the counter and… awkwardly flirting with a barista, who looks unenthused at best, “The others are either dead, _playing_ dead, or taking a page out of your book,” she pauses, meets his gaze at last, and gives him a slow smirk, “But I guess it’s not _your_ book anymore since you’re actually on time for once, so congrats or whatever.”

“Uh – thanks?”

She narrows her eyes at him and he fights back a whimper.

“Sit.”

For a second or so, he’s almost offended (because what is he? A dog?) but she’s pointing at the seat right next to her, so he shrugs off his backpack with an awkward shimmy of his shoulders.

The cushions make a weird rustling noise and he starts to shuffle around until he’s perched on the edge of the chair, clasping his hands because he doesn’t know what else to do. Because he doesn’t know what she’s _expecting_ him to do, and a part of him is too scared to find out. As a result, he ends up watching her as she blows a strand of hair out of her face and re-opens through her sketchbook.

The air between them is stuffed with a thousand thoughts and questions that roam and thrash around his head. It’s always like that when it’s just the two of them (which is why he tends to avoid being alone with her in the first place) and there’s so much he wants to talk to her about, so much he wants to know that he _doesn’t_ know where to start.

He wants to know about that song she was listening to on the field trip and if she listened to it again today on her way here. He wants to know about her favourite bands, books, and movies. He wants to know why she’s always so mean to him and why he doesn’t want her to stop.

Why being in the same room with her makes him so fucking nervous all the time and why thinking about her when he’s alone and crippled with fear calms him down like nothing else. He wants to know everything at once.

“So, what are you drawing?”

“I’m trying to draw a bridge.”

Her tone – dry and sprinkled with exasperation – tells him that he’s actually preventing her from proceeding with her task. That he’s a distraction, which is a good thing (because in truth, she’s shy and wants to him to keep asking questions so that they can have a conversation)? A bad thing (because in truth, she finds him annoying as hell and just really wants him to stop talking altogether)? He has no fucking clue. He never has.

_Well, what else is new?_

Curiosity bubbles up in his throat like a mouthful of bile and he can feel it bang against the back of his teeth. He drags his thumb along his brow. He doesn’t want to bother her, but he wants to _know_, so – 

“What kind of bridge?”

Unable (or rather, unwilling) to hide the roll of her eyes, she turns her sketchbook so that he can take a look at what she’s been working on.

It’s a bridge indeed, stuck between two white buildings that seem to have grown beyond water and then broken through the surface like a pair of limestone flowers. The drawing style is different, maybe a little more abstract than her famous crisis doodles. It’s all blurred contours, geometric forms, and thick, overlapping lines that for some reason, remind him of his webs. It’s beautiful… in a very grim, very devastating kind of way.

“It’s called ponte dei sospiri,” MJ explains in perfect Italian, “I read somewhere that Venetian convicts used to be led over it right before their execution. They’d look through the windows and sigh at their final view of the city or something, hence the whole bridge-of-sighs shtick. I kinda messed up the angles, so – ”

“No,” he squeaks, “You’re great,” _Wait, what!?_, “At drawing, I mean. You’re – I don’t know much about art, but I think you’re really talen – “

He doesn’t get any further than that. 

As it happens, he’s still stumbling over his words when a blonde waitress with tattooed forearms takes the wind out of his sails. As it happens, she places a cup of tea and a blueberry scone on the coffee table in front of him and tells him to enjoy his breakfast before she returns to the counter. Peter blinks at the food, thoroughly confused.

“I didn’t order anything.”

“Yeah, but I did. Like, in advance,” his head snaps up and he’s rendered speechless; she’s gone back to sketching, her lower lip caught between her teeth, “As I said: you look like a zombie.”

There’s something co-vibrating with her voice that he’s never heard before, a strange gentleness that catches him off guard and causes him to scrape a hand through his hair and rub the skin at the back of his neck. He can feel the heat there, ghostlike yet persistent. He can feel it reach up and around his scalp.

“How much do I owe yo – “

“Nothing.”

He can feel it kiss his cheeks.

“But – “

“Peter.”

He can feel it tug at the tips of his ears, he can feel it squirm along his veins. He can feel it everywhere. In his bones, his chest, his toes. He can feel it swallow him whole.

“Thanks,” he mumbles through the wild clatter of his pulse; she huffs and taps the end of her pencil against the paper.

“Shut up and eat.”

And so, he does. 

He takes a bite from the scone and it’s sweet, disgustingly so. The lump in his throat makes it hard to get it all down without breaking into a pathetic couching fit. 

He stares at her profile. The shadow of a smile (a real smile) strikes roots at the corners of her mouth, and his insides melt into a puddle.

_Jesus._

He should’ve known.

He should’ve known because suddenly, his heart is doing that weird gymnastics routine that became kind of a regular thing a few months ago. That weird, dizzying cartwheel-and-dive-roll combo that makes him feel all jittery and light-headed.

God, he should’ve known.

He should’ve known that this was going to happen eventually. He should’ve known since that moment on Queensboro Bridge a few months ago. That moment she glared at him like she was waiting for him to drop dead on the spot. 

He should’ve known, he should’ve known. 

He drops his gaze, smiles to himself again. 

He really _is_ a fucking idiot.

**Author's Note:**

> * Pesso's is a real ice cream parlour in Queens.
> 
> leave a comment or check out my [tumblr](https://blueprintofyourpast.tumblr.com) if you want.


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